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The Scottish Government has not engaged directly with any UK departments regarding the possibility of the Open Championship being held at Trump Turnberry and it has no future meetings planned.

Although the Scottish Government has a funding relationship with the R&A to support their events in Scotland, all venue decisions are solely at the discretion of the R&A and the Scottish Government is informed of venue selection after the decision has been made. The Scottish Government is not involved in the decision-making process.

Asylum is reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. This includes provision of asylum accommodation and support to people who would otherwise be destitute while waiting for a decision on their asylum application. Asylum accommodation is therefore provided by the UK Government to those who are eligible whilst in the asylum system and is managed under UK Government contracts.

The Scottish Government works closely with the Home Office, Local Authorities and Police Scotland to monitor activities surrounding community cohesion and protest activity. Police Scotland has existing powers to respond to instances of violence and intimidation within communities. There are no plans to introduce additional specific protection measures at asylum accommodation.

The Scottish Government has one contract with Fujitsu (Case 440206 Electronic Counting for Local Government Elections) to deliver electronic vote counting for Scottish local government elections. The contract commenced October 2020 at a value of £6,345,172 and is currently scheduled to conclude on 16th February 2027. The Scottish Government is currently undertaking an open procurement exercise to re-let this contract.

With regard to future procurement activity, the Scottish Government conducts its procurements in line with Scottish public procurement legislation and Scottish Government policy. All organisations bidding for contracts need to pass the selection criteria detailed in the procurement documents, which will include mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds. Any decision to exclude Fujitsu from participating in Scottish Government tenders will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Where a ground for exclusion applies, a supplier may be able to provide evidence of self-cleansing measures taken to demonstrate their reliability despite the existence of a relevant ground for exclusion, should this evidence prove that the measures taken by the supplier are sufficient then the supplier would not be excluded. These decisions will be made in accordance with regulation 58 of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.

At this time, the Scottish Government is not aware of Fujitsu tendering for any Scottish Government contracts.

The NDA Framework document underwent routine three yearly revision in 2024 and text was updated throughout the document. On pages 36-38 of the updated 2024 Framework Document there is a commitment that the NDA will comply with a range of government guidance, documents and instructions. These set out a number of requirements for openness and transparency to ensure that NDA continues to embody these principles in its operation and engagement with Scottish Government. Information on key risks is included in the NDA Annual Report and Accounts which is provided to Scottish Government as well as being published and laid at the Scottish Parliament every year.

In addition, specific requirements relating to accountability of the NDA to Scottish Ministers for its operations in Scotland as well as provision of relevant information and other specific requirements pertinent to Scottish Government remain in the updated 2024 Framework document.

Both National Park Authorities publish sections on remuneration and staffing within their Annual Report and Accounts.

For Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority this can be found at: Annual Report & Accounts - Here. Now. All of us. - Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park and the Cairngorms National Park Authority reports can be found at: Cairngorms National Park | Search.

Learning in the Social Studies curriculum area helps young people to develop important skills in research and evaluation, creativity, critical thinking and communication and it helps our young people develop as responsible, informed citizens with a global outlook covering important topics such as democracy and voting. In particular, Modern Studies helps to equip pupils with a range of Investigative and critical thinking skills; and English helps pupils to engage with texts of all kinds, critically evaluate the contents of those texts, and make informed judgements about the material they encounter on a day to day basis. SQA course specifications for Modern Studies and English are available at: A to Z of National Qualification (NQ) subjects - SQA To support learning and teaching, schools can already draw on a range of resources. For example, in relation to political literacy they can access the You decide - A political literacy resource | Resources | Education Scotland from Education Scotland, which provides guidance on how to ensure that learners use their voice, participate and contribute to decision-making processes.

The Scottish Government is providing funding to Time for Inclusive Education’s Digital Discourse Initiative. The resources provide teachers with the tools they need to teach core critical and digital media literacy skills, and to equip pupils with the necessary skills, knowledge and understanding they need to navigate digital media and counter the impacts of disinformation and online hate.

Later this year, Education Scotland will publish further professional learning resources on English, aimed at supporting teachers’ understanding of what critical literacy is and how they can support children to develop these crucial skills.

Finally, as the member may be aware, the Curriculum Improvement Cycle is also updating and strengthening the curriculum across all curricular areas.

This is a matter for Public Health Scotland who collate and manage this data.

The Scottish Government continues to develop policy and legislation to reduce marine litter pollution and grow our circular economy by reducing waste which can become litter.

We know that a lot of our marine litter comes from single-use products and we are building on previous legislation to tackle more of these items in the future. We are working across the four nations towards legislation that will ban businesses from supplying and selling wet wipes containing plastic, with exceptions for medical or industrial use. We remain committed to the delivery of a successful deposit return scheme for single-use drinks containers, working closely with industry and the rest of the UK to launch this in October 2027. In addition, we have also consulted on proposals to introduce a minimum 25 pence charge on single-use drinks cups, with the aim of incentivising the use of reusable alternatives.

To reduce packaging waste an Extended Producer Responsibility scheme is being implemented in 2025 across the UK. It will move the full cost of dealing with packaging waste from households to the producers. It will also incentivise businesses to reduce excess packaging and to design packaging that is more easily recycled.

The latest available estimates from the Scottish Household Survey 2023 (available here: Households in Scotland by housing tenure: Scottish Household Survey, 2023 - gov.scot show that between 90,000-110,000 households are on housing lists and 7,000-14,000 of these households had applied for social housing using a choice based letting system or similar within the last year. These estimates include some households already living in social rented housing, looking to transfer to a different home. Estimates from the 2024 Scottish Household Survey are scheduled for publication at the end of 2025.

The Scottish Government’s actions to improve the efficiency of household recycling systems are set out in the Circular Economy and Waste Route Map.

In partnership with local authorities and other stakeholders, the Scottish Government is co-designing a new statutory Code of Practice for household recycling. The Scottish Government held co-design events with local government on 23 June and 22 July 2025. The findings from these sessions are being used to inform the planning of wider stakeholder engagement with business, the third sector and citizens. The new Code of Practice will be completed by the end of 2026, after which it will be made available for public consultation.

We are making one of the biggest investments in a generation to modernise recycling in Scotland through the Recycling Improvement Fund. A total of £66.6 million has now been allocated to 27 local authorities for 48 projects to increase the quantity and quality of recycling across Scotland.

Local authorities in Scotland will see around £150 million per year in funding to support collection for household packaging waste through extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging. These payments will start from November 2025